Tanay Kumar is the CEO, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Fractal ink Design Studios and a member of our esteemed jury for the Brand Summit & Hot Brands 2019.
- What do you think is the key difference between a hot and not so hot brand?
Take any of the hottest brands – the one thing they have in common is the experience they create. What makes a brand hot is its ability to be different, relatable, enhance lives, drive engagement and deliver an exceptional experience to their consumers.
- What is the role of marketing in making a brand “hot’?
Marketing holds the role of creating desire. Availability of data is at an all-time high. While most marketers focus on successfully catching the eye of their consumers, hot ones aim to capture their hearts. They work on making the brand stand out – not just in terms of uniqueness of the concept, but how association with it makes a consumer seem cool.
Then again, it isn’t enough to just be desirable. The difference a brand makes matters too. It has to help the consumer make a difference – to his family, his peers, to society.
It’s all about empathy and storytelling.
- How has technology transformed the marketing landscape?
There can only be one answer to this question –it has shifted the spotlight from the brand to the consumer. The consumer today is not only the king but the queen and the entire executive council as well.
The palm-sized devices that we call smartphones, happen to be the key culprit. Mobile devices created a spotlight that makes every consumer the hero of his/her story. Thanks to this, consumers today know everything (or at least has the ability to do so, right at their fingertips), has an opinion about everything, and will compulsively share that opinion with everybody (whether they like it or not).
In other words, the marketer and the brand have become inconsequential. What they say doesn’t matter. It’s all about what the consumer thinks and what they say (or not say). Technology, therefore, has forced marketing to reinvent itself, from being the mouthpiece to a thought provoking-catalyst.
- With the number of brands entering the market today, what should brands do to stay competitive?
The consumer is constantly changing, his needs, his tastes, his loyalties are continuously evolving. Brands need to consistently reinvent themselves to stay relevant to the consumer, retain their position as thought leaders, stay in the periphery view of the consumer, and create a deep emotional impact.
